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18
Album Review

Ches Smith: Laugh Ash

Read "Laugh Ash" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Ches Smith's Laugh Ash is not your garden-variety jazz concoction. Instead, it is a genre-defying, shape-twisting auditory escapade that does not just push the envelope--it sends it soaring into the stratosphere. It is both bewildering and bedazzling. These compositions stand as a towering testament to Smith's impressive acumen as a drummer, percussionist, and composer, a veritable Houdini of the music world who escapes the shackles of convention to chart a mesmerizing course through uncharted musical terrains.Right from the ...

6
Album Review

Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard

Read "Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The term “proof of concept" might be the appropriate subtitle to Kris Davis' Diatom Ribbons' Live At The Village Vanguard. Her concept, first heard on the eponymous release Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic, 2019), is demonstrated on two discs taken from 12 sets over six nights at the famed Greenwich Village nightclub. The pianist does indeed verify that her concepts have practical application. She initially formed a core group, a quartet with bassist Trevor Dunn, turntablist and electronics composer Val Jeanty (aka ...

4
Album Review

Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard

Read "Diatom Ribbons Live At The Village Vanguard" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Rogue pianist and noted polymath Kris Davis exercises the mercurial fluidity of her future-forward-thinking quartet, Diatom Ribbons--drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, turntablist and electronic musician Val Jeanty, and bassist Trevor Dunn--ushers guitarist Julian Lage into the maelstrom and voila! Another memorable Live at the Village Vanguard emerges boldly and triumphantly. As befits Davis and company, the collective energy running rampant on this two-disc set is hard to pin down, but it is as palpable and discernible as a cut ...

4
Album Review

Mark Dresser: Tines of Change

Read "Tines of Change" reviewed by Jeff Schwartz


Since his arrival as a member of Anthony Braxton's mid-1980s quartet, Mark Dresser has been expanding the sonic palette of the upright bass. Like Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, and Joëlle Léandre before him, Dresser drew from both the classical avant-garde of players such as Bertram Turetzky and Fernando Grillo and the more intuitive improvisational approaches of Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, William Parker, and others. His solo recordings are important documents of this work; Tines of Change is the latest.

6
Album Review

Mark Dresser: Tines of Change

Read "Tines of Change" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Anyone familiar with the work of bassist Mark Dresser knows that he is an uncompromising innovator, always dedicated to pushing his music into new territory; and if that requires novel technical modifications to his instrument itself, then so be it. He has partnered with fellow bassist Kent McLagan as far back as 2001 to create adapted basses using additional pickups, which allow Dresser to create multiple pitches for each string of his bass. On his most recent solo project, Tines ...

13
Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier / Cory Smythe: The Rite of Spring: Spectre d’un songe

Read "The Rite of Spring: Spectre d’un songe" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Two daring jazz improvisers take on a cherished hundred-year-old classical ballet masterpiece with radical roots on The Rite of Spring: Spectre d'un songe. Igor Stravinsky was fresh off the success of his 1911 “Petrushka," which radiated with the artistic atmosphere of his Russia, when in 1913 he premiered “The Rite of Spring" at the opening of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The audience was divided into the Parisian elite in the boxes and the “bohemian" aesthetes scattered about the theater. Stravinsky's ...

6
Album Review

Ingrid Laubrock: The Last Quiet Place

Read "The Last Quiet Place" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock always seems to search out new instrumental configurations for her music. This time out, she and her musical and life partner, drummer Tom Rainey, collaborate with a quartet of accomplished string players, guitarist Brandon Seabrook, violinist Mazz Swift, cellist Tomeka Reid, and bassist Michael Formanek. Together they create stimulating music which can be many things. At different times it sounds formal, urgent, placid, and violent. “Afterglow" and “Anticipation" explore some of the classical possibilities of ...

11
Album Review

Ingrid Laubrock: The Last Quiet Place

Read "The Last Quiet Place" reviewed by Troy Dostert


When saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock finds herself in her comfort zone, it is typically in small group formations--often just duos or trios--which allow her unparalleled skills as an improviser to shine most brightly. However, listeners are always in for a special treat when she ventures out into less familiar terrain, especially with larger ensembles. On recordings such as Contemporary Chaos Practices (Intakt, 2018) or Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt (Intakt, 2020), Laubrock takes advantage of the opportunity to develop her ambitious compositional ...

8
Album Review

Cory Smythe: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Read "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" reviewed by John Sharpe


The startling molten sounds which open pianist Cory Smythe's Smoke Gets In Your Eyes signal that this will be no ordinary journey. On the first four cuts he draws on a stellar 11-strong squad which matches leading cutting edge figures such as saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, trumpeter Peter Evans and cellist Tomeka Reid, with colleagues from the International Contemporary Ensemble, hailed as America's foremost new-music group by The New Yorker, such as violinist Josh Modney and sadly deceased saxophonist Ryan Muncy, ...

13
Album Review

Patricia Brennan: More Touch

Read "More Touch" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


It's uncanny how More Touch, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan's scarily good follow-up to her head-turning debut Maquishti (Valley of Search, 2021) follows one around all day. Its essence is in the air, in the room, in the conversation. It sneaks around the corner and races down the stairs, out into the street, and breaks into any and all of the machinations that drive the day. Born of its own fevered animation, the music on More Touchis brazen. Atmospheric yet ...


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